Astros
Astros is an immensely powerful entity that is made up entirely of darkness. The most powerful threat that Jimmy the Wizard has ever faced, Astros is capable of bringing darkness to planets, turning them into lifeless wastelands. Creation Sometime during the early years of the universe, a freak phenomenon occurred during the collapse of a star. The spirit of Astros, one of the earliest chaotic beings, was drawn into a freakishly powerful black hole, one of the largest to ever have existed. The spirit bonded with the singularity created by the black hole, which happened to be darkness which had been compressed so much it became a physical substance. So was born Astros, a being that only saw darkness, only saw death and burning and hatred. Astros feared goodness and light. The very idea of benevolence would lead an infant Astros to tremble in fear, expelling huge amounts of energy that caused supernovas. Eventually, after about 2 million years, its energy stabilised and it began to think rationally. So began its campaign to bathe the universe with darkness. Seeking to bathe the universe in darkness, Astros began its campaign, moving across the universe and consuming all light and life that it came across. Eventually, it reached sentient, inhabited galaxies, and before long, the UPA was alerted to its presence. Jimmy, underestimating its power, attempted to confront it on a distant world that was about to be terraformed. However Jimmy was not met by a single being, rather a gigantic black cloud and fog that stretched across the entire sky. Formless and erratic tendrils spewed out of the cloud, drawn to any life and light in the vicinity, replacing it with nothing but darkness. Astros killed nearly all of the UPA's 23 most powerful warriors that day, and Jimmy and the others only just managed to avoid being killed by expending nearly all their magical energies to protect themselves. Only 4 of them escaped alive, including the Afrometer, but they were all gravely injured and near death, with 2 later dying of their injuries. Due to its 'young' age, Astros still did not have full sentience, only acting on impulse. This meant it didn't even register the presence of the UPA, just seeing them as more food on its primitive but sinister quest. Jimmy the Wizard eventually recovered back in the relative safety of Afrazel, but quickly realised the entire known universe was still under threat as Astros was unopposed. Jimmy gathered all of Afrazel's most competent sorcerers, which included his brother Gumbol, along with sorcerers from many other worlds. They gathered on Vovani, the planet on which Jimmy had honed his distinctive skills, and they set out to locate and study all of the anti dark spells from countless forms of magic. Eventually, one of them discovered a book of old runic spells from an extinct race known as the Old Priests. They had existed billions of years ago and had developed sorcery that dealt with the large amounts of dark cosmic entity emitted by Astros after its creation. After the 16,000 strong group, called the Bounded, had learned these spells the best that they could, they traveled to a lifeless rocky planet that was next in Astros' path. They collectively cast the Old Priest's spells, causing a seismic amount of light energy to be emitted at the dark being. This caused a huge magical explosion, which released trillions of lumens of light from the planet. This light struck fear into Astros, who was overwhelmed by such vast quantities of energy, and it fled from the light, back into the far corner of the universe from which it came. Unfortunately most of the Bounded were killed in the effort, either by expending too much sorcerous energy, or from Astros itself. Jimmy returned home, along with 340 surviving Bounded, where they documented the experience and began planning for Astros should it ever return. Astros, severely weakened by the light, was confined to the outer rim of the universe, feeding off the dark energy there. However, as it ages, it is rumoured that its intelligence increases, and that it may plan a return... Appearance Astros is approximately the size of Venus, although its size is variable as its form is not rigid. It appears as a pitch black storm cloud, with huge, erratic tendrils lashing out of it towards sources of life at blinding speeds. It has no other discernible features at this point, as all of itself is collectively drawn to anything that isn't darkness to eradicate it. Its behaviour in its infancy has often been compared to that of a hive. Abilities Originally, Astros contained so much energy from the billions of atoms stored in such a small space, and spent hundreds of thousands of years immobile, simply expelling titanic quantities of power. As its energy stabilised, Astros became aware of its perceived mission; to bring chaos and darkness to the universe. It moves at immense speed, being limitless in its speed when immersed in darkness. However to absorb and destroy large, planetary quantities of light energy and lifeforms, it must slow to the pace of a storm cloud. Astros attacks lifeforms by projecting pure chaos matter from itself, which spreads through the air like a skeletal hand. When it reaches the victim, it latches onto them, sapping away the life and light from their body, literally only leaving pure darkness in its wake. It attacks light energy however by swamping it in its cloud and fog, reducing it to nothing but darkness. Astros is also impervious to almost any attack. The only substance which can cause it harm is light energy, hence its quest to destroy all of it. However no entity is yet known that can emit such vast quantities of light to truly overcome Astros, as even the combined effort of the known universe's most powerful sorcerers only served to frighten the infant being into hiding. In its current infant state, it has no reasoning consciousness, rather the entity itself is hive like; possessing a collective hunger that is only sated once the entire universe is restored into darkness. However, as it ages, it becomes more sentient and intelligent, with many predicting that it will eventually possess a godlike mind.